Christmas Eve, 2007.

Excerpt from an India journal.

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I stood at the sales counter impatiently, purposefully ignoring my jovial counterparts buying color-splashed clothes for the upcoming New Year celebrations. I reached forward to ring the bell on the counter for a third time before a plump, pleasant woman turned to me, murmuring a sweet and generic welcome. Her smile was warm and apologetic, and she tilted her head towards the throngs of people that flooded in and out of the doors periodically to explain her prolonged absence. I responded to the sales woman’s endearing smile with a polite – if distant – nod of my own and laid my list on the table, unwilling to speak. I watched her wide, toothy grin disappear and be replaced with an expression of kind – if unwanted – sympathy before she vanished to the depths of the basement. The woman reappeared moments later and hesitantly asked for design selection.

I could not help but laugh mirthlessly. Most granddaughters wished to buy their grandmothers something sweet, as a token of their affection and appreciation. A handful of flowers from the street-side vendor, or perhaps a new set of earrings. Yet here I was, standing at one of the largest retail clothing stores in the city shopping for a sari that society has deemed appropriate only for a widow. After smiling a little tiredly at the helpful saleswoman, I blindly purchased two sets and exited the brightly lit store and walked a narrow path in the looming darkness to the awaiting auto-rickshaw.